“You’re a speed hypocrite, buddy.” That pesky wee voice in the back of my head rose from whisper to accusative shout last weekend as I zipped along the 401 at a law-defying pace from Windsor to Toronto.

A few years back I wrote a column defending the 100-km/h limit on Ontario’s 400-series highways. Fired off in response to a retired OPP officer’s call for it to be boosted to a more realistic level, the piece argued that the status quo was saving lives and we should stick with it.

I meant well. I really did. But I never lived by my own words. Well there was that one time, a year ago, when I tried, really tried, to stick to the 100-km/h limit, a speed that felt absurdly slow when it replaced 70 mph back in 1976 — my rust-bucket Plymouth Fury days — and seems even more so in 2014.

The fuel savings were significant at a leisurely 100 km/h. But I felt like a speed bump on eastbound 401. I was being passed by everyone. East of Kitchener it felt downright dangerous to be so out of synch with the traffic flow. Nearing Toronto, where most vehicles barrel along at 130 km/h or better, when not stopped in traffic, I abandoned the experiment to avoid becoming road kill.

This law has become a farce. When 19 out of 20 non-commercial drivers, minimum, are thumbing their noses at it and putting the pedal to the metal, it becomes a meaningless exercise that turns the law into a joke that breeds disrespect.

A former OPP officer (hi Kim) confided years ago that I could drive at 115 km/h on the 401 without worrying about a ticket. He was bang-on, because in the 38 years the tortoise law has been in place, I have yet to be pulled over for driving above the limit on dozens of trips to Toronto and beyond.

So what’s the point? Why have a law if even law enforcement considers it unworthy of enforcing? What’s gained, apart from fine revenue, by turning nearly everyone into lawbreakers?

Ontario, the nanny province, is grossly out of step with the rest of the developed world. Most of America’s highways now have a 70 mph (113 km/h) speed limit, Texas has an 85 mph limit on one of its new toll roads between Austin and San Antonio, and Florida, home of a gazillion geezers, is in the process of approving a controversial increase on its interstate highways from 70 mph to 75 mph. That should wake up the slowpokes.

Globe and Mail writer Peter Cheney recently described how he cruised for hours at 200 km/h (120 mph) on a German autobahn that’s mostly without speed limits. And yet Germany, with the world’s fastest freeways, has a traffic death rate just over half that of Canada.

Part of the answer, of course, is that Germans take their driving seriously. They actually know how to drive. I recall riding in a Canadian army van doing 80 mph in the slow lane of a West German autobahn and watching car after car flash past in a blur. It was a spectacle.

The Toronto Star’s Wheels section has conducted a marathon campaign against the 100 km/h rate on 400-series highways. It argues, convincingly, that higher rates would improve traffic flow and actually lower fatalities.

In 2012 the lobby group “stop100.ca” sent a letter to Ontario MPPs asking them to “reward drivers with a reasonable speed limit that’s reflective of the prevailing average speeds on our roads. Please decriminalize our current driving patterns which contribute to making our roads some of the safest in North America.”

In other words, recognize reality. That’s what B.C. did last week when it boosted the speed limit on rural highways to 120 km/h. As B.C. transportation minister Todd Stone put it: “When you have motorists all generally moving at the same rate of speed — as opposed to people moving much faster or much slower than the natural flow of speed — you’re going to have a safer corridor.”

This should be a no-brainer for the Kathleen Wynne regime, a chance to do something quick and popular for motorists, even if it ticks off insurance industry lobbyists.

But it should also come with a clear warning that the gloves are off for those who exceed 120 km/h. Let the OPP focus on real speeders, jackass tailgaters, reckless lane changers and other knuckleheads.

Higher limits — but not for 18 wheelers — should be accompanied by a firm commitment from this infrastructure-obsessed government to build much-needed median barriers between Tilbury and London and turn the 401 into a true 21st century highway.

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